This dissertation research will produce a comprehensive analysis of the connections between psychosocial aspects of Parkinson's Disease (PD) and the current rural healthcare delivery system. This project will explain the healthcare-seeking behavior and service utilization of rural, community-dwelling older adults by examining the autobiographical illness narratives of people with PD (PWPD), and by tracing how their beliefs about the aging process influence their illness experience. Parkinson's Disease is a progressive, incurable neurological condition that predominantly affects older adults. PD is chronic, causes considerable disability, produces outward symptoms that stigmatize and embarrass PWPD, requires costly prescription medications, and necessitates access to medical specialists. This disease is of particular interest because its early symptoms-tremor and slowness-may be misinterpreted by medical providers and patients alike as things to be expected in later life, or as simply "the old age disease." This study will answer the following questions: How do older PWPD's perceptions of aging and disease influence their health seeking behavior? and What are the political economic factors which impede PWPD's healthcare utilization? This research will further our understanding of the social and political economic factors that influence older adults' health-seeking behavior and service utilization, which affects older adults' health status. The dissertation research is a multimethod study that employs both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Autobiographical illness narrative interviews with older adults living with PD, semistructured interviews with informal familial caregivers, structured interviews with medical providers, and observational data from PD support group meetings will comprise the bulk of the data. The resultant qualitative data will be linked to health status and services utilization questionnaires designed during a recent pilot study. Computer software programs will enable the candidate to link the questionnaire data with the qualitative data to examine the relationships among health status, healthcare utilization and PWPD's narrated experience. [unreadable] [unreadable]